Canvas
by Snowfur10
Summary: A artist with no inspiration is just like a fish out of water, or a bird beneath the earth. A person with no personality is just worthless, like a blank torn-up canvas. For this girl, who has become both, what hope is there...? Based off Kagefumi Etranger
1. Point

**Author's Note: Yes, I'm horrible. I know. I didn't go through with my original plan of typing a Halloween "Trick And Treat" story. BUT I WOULDN'T HAVE BEEN ABLE TO POST IT IN THE FIRST PLACE! I'VE HAD TO EXPERIENCE THE HORROR OF LIVING WITHOUT ELECTRICITY! TWO DAYS! I WOULDN'T HAVE BEEN ABLE TO POST A STORY EVEN IF I TRIED! 3**

**Wait…this isn't a blog of my life…OTLLLL**

**Has anybody heard the song "Kagefumi Etranger"? It's a Miku song and it's just…awesome. Although, I personally think it'd would sound better with Luka, or Meiko, or some other more mature-sounding female Vocaloid, it has really awesome instrumentals, an awesome guitar part, there's an frickin' AWESOME PV for it that really brings into focus what the song might be about…Yeah, that's enough ranting from me. By the way, the title means something to the effect of "A Stranger Stepping on Your Shadow."**

**Why do I have this thing for songfics? BECAUSE I DO.**

**This is just barely a fanfiction because the main character…isn't Miku! The only thing fanfiction-like about this is the concept. It's almost entirely based on Kagefumi's PV. So, enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Miku, the song, the PV, the artistic definitions, the words, the website I'm posting this on, or even the computer I'm typing on. I only brought the computer. I think own counts as making it. All I own is the way the words are put together, and the main character. Please treat Ayane kindly.**

**(…yes, that was my stupid attempt at an icebreaker. Enjoy! And yes, I know I repeat myself. O3o;;;;)**

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><p><em>A STRANGER STEPPING ON YOUR SHADOW<em>

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><p><em>Point<em>

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><p>If you consult a Geometry textbook, a point is an entity that has a location in space, but no extent. If you watch sports, a point is where half of the crowd whoops in joy. If you consult a dictionary, it is a few lines of print with meaning.<p>

If you ask me, a point is a beginning.

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><p>As I stare up at the textured whiteness of the ceiling—I refuse to claim it as mine—I silently wonder, exactly where is my "point"? After all, a story has a "point"…the first word on the page.<p>

Would my "point" be my first breathe? The first sight I saw? The first smile I smiled? The first word I spoke?

The first drawing I scribbled on a clean piece of paper?

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><p>"Ayane-chan! Your mom is here," the woman in the marigold apron smiles. I gaze up from the piece of paper, the ninth one today. I eagerly, but carefully pick up the piece of paper and set the nub of a cardinal red crayon down. Step by step, I totter towards Mommy, with a red and yellow checked pattern scarf and a long soft red trench coat complimenting her warm autumn brown hair.<p>

"Mommy! Mommy! Look at what I drew!" I cheer, politely holding out the piece of paper. Mommy's lipstick-accented pink lips stretch into a thin curve of a smile.

"Aya-chan, it's beautiful!" she praises, the way adults are supposed to praise the indiscernible scribbles of a four-year-old child."Who is it?"

"You, of course, Mommy!" I pout. "Of course it's you! I drew Daddy and Big Bro and Maneki Neko too!" I add, pointing at the scatter of papers in the square foot or two I had claimed as my drawing place.

"Oh…I see now! Keep on drawing and you'll be the 21st century Picasso someday, Aya-chan," Mommy grins. "But first, you need to go home. Get ready and we'll head home, and then you can continue being my Little Picasso." I bob my head, dancing happily back to the pile of papers, and remind myself to ask Mommy what Picasso was again. Mommy and Marigold Apron talk for a few minutes as I hunt down my well-used crayons and carefully pull my papers into the aquamarine folder I picked out at the store.

Aya-chan. Mommy's Little Picasso. How much pride I put in those titles.

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><p><strong>Author's Note: Yes, short. Next one will be longer, I promise.<strong>

**Please comment! Constructive criticism is welcomed!**


	2. Dream

**Author's Note: Just realized…previous chapter…the Author's Note is almost as long/longer than the actual story…**

**Disclaimer: Do not own anything. 'cept Ayane (as a person, not her name) and the storyline. Otherwise, I do not own anything. I do not deserve to own anything in the first place.**

**[You pessimist, you… ^u^]**

**(Ehhh? I'm talking to myself now. Better get to the story before I get off track.)**

**[You're just trying to cut yourself off! n]**

**(SSSSSTTOOOOOOPPP, VOOOOOIIIIICCEEEEE-!)**

**[Okay, start! ^v^]**

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><p><em>Canvas<em>

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><p><em>Dream<em>

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><p>A lot of things can be labeled as a dream. Lots of kids, particularly boys, dream of becoming professional athletes. Even more, particularly little, little kids, dream of becoming policemen, firemen, or other glorified heroes on the job. The occasional "nerdy" genius wants to become a pioneering scientist. And the musical crowd who'd like to be on stage professionally someday. And more. It's an endless list of dreams.<p>

To be honest, as a little kid, I made almost anything a dream. Because, I reasoned, who said dreams had to be something you fulfilled as an adult? Grow tall enough to jump and touch the ceiling, about as far as the sky. Run fast enough to run faster than that slightly bothersome kid who uses his speed as an excuse to get first pick at anything, including the line to the water fountain after P.E. Get as strong as that shonen manga hero who makes the impossible possible, no matter how many more impossibilities lie ahead. Become more beautiful than the shojo manga heroine who makes men fall at her feet with a single cute gesture.

Finish sketching that idea in your head, Ayane-chan, not necessarily perfect, but beautiful to the point it speaks to everybody.

(Large dreams those were, huh?)

Yeah, perhaps most people would call those mere "aspirations," not grand "dreams." Don't worry about my personal feelings. Just continue trampling that innocent shadow of a dream. Demote it to something unimportant, an "aspiration," "wishful thinking." It's no big deal.

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><p>I think the reason my mom bought me my first sketchbook was to keep me from resorting to using the walls of the nursery. After all, the paper bin could only hold so much.<p>

Although I didn't realize it until much later, Mom often came to pick me up very late, occasionally even an hour after Arata, who was being raised by a single mom, had left. He left at times that were considered way past a respectable sleeping time for a little kid. You'd think we'd become best friends, being the two kids who were left behind at the late hours of night, but we were both loners. The moment the other kids left, we'd happily retreat to opposite corners, Arata to fiddle around with building blocks or napping, me to draw. We did talk, but not much. We were only friends in the loosest sense possible.

The fact I spent half of my time at the nursery drawing and only (half of) nap time napping definitely said something about my sleeping hours. Even now, I find myself staring out at the bright moon and swirling stars, hours after Dad's snores have become audible. I think it also said something about how much paper I used.

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><p>The first time the paper in the bin ran out, I didn't realize that it <em>wasn't<em> a sign from the forces up there to try the floor. The shiny, smooth floor rejected my efforts to color it sky blue. I assumed the forces up there were telling me, "You have more space on your paper! Look, Ayane-chan!" So I carefully pulled my papers together, flipping each sheet to the back of each to see if there was any empty space for me to use. There wasn't. Into the fairly plump aquamarine folder they went. I made a mental note to ask Mom how to repair aquamarine folders that were sprouting 0.5 centimeter long tears at the sides.

So I assumed it was a sign from the forces up there to try the walls instead. I carefully picked up the aquamarine folder, trying not to make the rips larger than they already were. Obviously the aquamarine folder was in pain. I wouldn't want to hurt it even more. Stepping as close to the centers of the tiles on the floor as I could, I tip-toed to an exposed patch of white wall, textured with light gray shadows under small bumps. Cautiously resting my aquamarine folder next to me, I bent my knees, keeping my heels off the floor, hunching over to scratch on the wall with the sky blue crayon. To my delight, it made a mark. Scratchy, but it'd suffice.

"Aya-chan, why are you at the wall?" a familiar voice chirped, prompting me to turn. A girl, petite even for her age, gazes back at me with brown umber eyes, her hair a red-tinted brown. I always found it strange that her hair color matched her name, Aki, or "autumn."

I carefully maneuvered so she could see the wall, still perched on the front of my feet. "The paper basket is empty," I explained to her. "God told me to use the wall." She laughed at this, a chime bell of a laugh, a shining silver of a laugh.

If there was one person I would count as my friend back in those days, it was Aki. She was the only kid with enough patience to try to make friends with unsociable me, plus she was just a bit of a loner too. Even so, she was a popular loner. It makes no sense. It's hard to explain fully, I think. But I digress. Obviously, she was the first and only kid to notice me running from my usual spot donated to drawing paper.

"You're so strange, Aya-chan! That's why I like you though. Can I draw too?" she asked, already motioning for her favorite color, the lively golden yellow. She started making marks on the wall too, because she already knew that I would have said "Yes."

Only a minute later, we finished, laying down the crayons. "I learned something," I said quietly. "Walls are different from paper." I gazed over at Aki's work, trying to ignore the bump-induced shakiness of the lines.

"You drew Mr. Blue Jay, right?" Aki guessed. Mr. Blue Jay was what we had decided to call the lively blue bird that always chirped outside the window.

"Yep! That's Sun-sama, neh—?"

Aki and I flinched simultaneously as an outraged screech came from behind us.

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><p>"If you two were drawing on the wall, you got what you deserved. My mom looks angry whenever I toss blocks down the stairs to see how many collisions they can stand," Arata whispered to us the next day. The blocks he had piled up in a tower came down with a clack as his hand slipped. He aimed an oddly dark look for a little kid at the collapsed pile.<p>

"And I thought you'd side with us, Arata-kun!" Aki pouted, using her feet to spin herself around on the smooth floor. "It's only the wall! It was so blank before! Doesn't it look better with those drawings? Besides, Aya-chan ran out of paper."

I grinned as Arata and Aki continued debating about whether a few marks on the wall really was enough to get two overly art-enthusiastic girls condemned to isolated seats—AWAY from the wall—to consider their actions. Simple times, simple arguments, simple laughs. That's all.

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><p>I feel that if I were to go to the nursery now, years later, the evidence of our carefree times would be permanently written on that wall in sky blue and golden yellow, a bird and a sun, happiness and misfortune hand-in-hand.<p>

But who knows? It could have been wiped away with a few strokes of a janitor's mop.

Perhaps I should be sad if that happened. But thinking about it doesn't color anything in my empty canvas heart.

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><p>On my fifth birthday, only two weeks after the wall incident, my mom handed me my first sketchbook, thick with blank papers and just a bit heavy.<p>

"No more wall murals, okay, Little Picasso?" my mom laughed, perhaps just a bit nervously. I was too happy about my new sketchbook to notice.

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><p>Why would it be no big deal for you to trample on that innocent shadow, that meaning of "dream?" Because before you've finished destroying it all, that "me," who believed in many dreams, would already have died off.<p>

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><p><strong>Author's Note: I'll try to update at least once a month, but I have no particular idea where this story is going to head. It may seem happy now, but as you can kinda guess from the "present" snippets…*shrugs* Just guess. Labels are there for a reason.<strong>

**[Keep on acting like that, and nobody will read this, y'know? 3]**

**(WHO ASKED YOU TO COME IN, I LOOK LIKE A SCHIZOPHRENIC-)**

**[Continue talking like that, and you ARE a schizophrenic. ^_^]**

**(Good point.)**

**Comment please! Constructive criticism welcomed, okay?**

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><p><em>(…now, go away before next chapter.)<em>

_[No. If I leave you alone, you'll chase away all your readers with that negative attitude. 3]_

_(I need a negative attitude for angst. Go away.)_

_[No.]_

_([*sigh*])_

_(Ehh?)_

_[You know what, let's stop talking…long ANs drive away readers too…]_

_(Yeah…)_


	3. Wish

**Author's Note: Yeah, a mildly holiday-themed chapter coming up. However, the story's plot itself is still moving forward, hah! Somehow…*sigh* Okay, maybe it isn't moving forward. OTL**

**(I swear, I will get writer's block at some point. I just know it.)**

**Well, we'll continue with Ayane's holidays…*sigh* AND YES, I KNOW I'M LATE!**

**Edit: I started this chapter about three days after holidays ended. I'm about a month late now.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Christmas. I do not own Christ. I do not own God. I do not own Kagefumi Etranger. I am not the supreme leader of any world-wide religions that celebrate Christmas. I am not the founder of New Year's. I do not own any Christmas traditions. I do not own snow. I do not—**

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><p><em>Canvas<em>

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><p><em>Wish<em>

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><p>Whenever winter came around, I would pull on a coat, boots, and mittens, run outside, and stand on a certain stone. There was nothing special about the stone: It was just a normal, possibly over-sized rock. But the stone was isolated: It was too big to be a pebble. It was too far away from the driveway to be part of it. It wasn't rooted in the ground either, and I enjoyed tilting my balance back and forth while standing on it just to enjoy the momentary thrill of not being exactly 90 degrees to the ground.<p>

The little swirls of gray and white on the rock, creating layer upon layer of circles centered around the highest point on the rock, weren't what most people would call beautiful. However, they entranced the eye, making one want to stare at it and follow its eternal circles for as long as it would take. The rock was almost perfectly smooth when I first noticed it, but my time spent standing on it wore shallow boot marks into the top.

I'd stand there, breathing just to watch the little clouds curl out of my mouth and dissipate as they lost their warmth. I once wondered, W_hat if the clouds are made of the world's breath?_ The laughter, the tears, the journey, the reward. All collected up in the sky, floating around the world for all to see.

It made me feel closer to the world than I did before.

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><p>"Do you think it'll be a white Christmas?"<p>

I turned to look at Aki, her brown umber eyes twinkling as she awaited my response. We were sitting on the fake leather couch at my home, our stomachs pushing into the cushions as we gazed out the window at the faded winter sky. Around Christmas, Aki would ceaselessly ask that question. "Who knows. If it is, I'll draw it, okay?" I sighed, directing my eyes back out the window.

"They have cameras for a reason, Aya-chan!" Aki pouted, poking me in the side.

"But with oils, you might be able to create a warm, natural atmosphere!" I protested, instinctively pulling back my elbow to defend my tickle-prone sides.

"Camera filters are the answer! You can make sepia-toned pictures! Or yellow-toned pictures! And with Photoshop, you could even make the pictures look painted!" Ever since Aki had discovered her father's dusty old tripod, she had been trying to convert me.

"My great-great-grandpa told me that the journey is the reward!" I laughed, poking Aki's sides, her weak spots. She immediately convulsed into fits of laughter.

"Your great-great-grandpa was a star in the sky before you were even born! And don't try that again, Aya-chan!" she gasped between giggles.

We exchanged pokes and retorts until we were both out of breath. As we lay on our opposite ends of the couch, I murmured, "Aki-chan, why do you find it so important that it snows on Christmas?" I scooted backwards so I could see Aki's face better.

She gave me the same look a conceited wise man gives a foolish beggar at the side of the street. "It isn't Christmas if it snows, of course!" I giggled. It was such a typical answer from Aki.

"But is there anything more?" I added, needling her for a better answer.

Aki flashed a grin that revealed one missing front tooth. "Who says you need more for Christmas?"

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><p>That Christmas Eve, Daddy silently passed a piece of paper across the dinner table. I spent an entire minute deciphering the one line of his messy scrawl running across the top. Who could blame a kid who had just graduated to spending only half an hour to read a single picture book on her own?<p>

(If that was embarrassing, please know that I appreciated the pictures more than the usual six-year-old.)

"'Write a leek?'" I finally said, furrowing my tiny eyebrows to release my overwhelming confusion. Daddy laughed, filling my little mind's vision with a bright mix of red and orange.

"No, write a 'wish.' How did you confuse those two?" Daddy handed over a pencil. I attempted to hold it without grasping it like a baseball bat. The eraser of the pencil leaped up and down as my index finger occasionally strayed from its position apart from the rest of my fingers. I gave up my losing battle and ended up holding it like a baseball bat anyways, my four "normal" fingers curled on one side of the pencil and thumb circling around the other way. I jabbed it into the page, a few lines under Daddy's request. The pencil tip threatened to snap off from the excessive amount of pressure, and the paper made the quiet _kreeeee_ sound it makes when on the edge of ripping.

_I knew crayons were different from pencils,_ I thought, considering the enormous difference between the sounds my crayon made when I was drawing, and the sounds my pencil made when I was writing. I handed the paper back to Daddy. His eyes darted back and forth, and he chuckled. "Another sketchbook?"

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><p>My hands gripped at Mommy's cerulean dress after we had opened all our gifts (or rather, I had opened my gifts; that was before I got my own allowance and purchased gifts for Mom and Dad). "Mommy, Daddy told me to write a wish today," I chirped. "I wrote that I wished for a sketchbook, but you know, Mommy? I wished to become a world-famous artist. And people would know my paintings and sketches by name, like Leo and Mona Lisa!" I grinned. "Mommy, what's your wish?"<p>

"That's my Little Picasso." Mommy patted me on the head, ruffling my hair. "I wish we can grow up as a happy family, you, Daddy, and I, and never be separated." She picked me up by the waist and held me high, spinning around. I giggled from the thrill of the air whooshing around me. She continued carrying me and brought me to my bedroom. "What book do you want to read today?"

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><p>I don't remember what book we read, but I do remember my little mind wondering this.<p>

_Why didn't Mommy mention my dream?_

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><p><strong>Author's Note: A few notes. First of all, I made a Japanese language pun, that's actually probably really pathetic. Leek and wish are pronounced similarly (leek is 'negi,' and wish is 'negai'). However, since Ayane would be reading them in katakana or hiragana (not sure which), the way they'd be written would look very different, so it's actually amazing she managed to make such a mistake. So the only reason I picked that pun is whatever the Japanese equivalent of Engrish is.<strong>

**Second, Ayane doesn't realize she's holding crayons correctly, and thinks the fact that the pencil is skinnier means that the way she's holding crayons doesn't apply to pencils.**

**And thirdly (that's not a word, right?), I just realized I'm ending all my chapters on a slightly negative note. I know this is angst, but that's mildly…off…unattractive…umm…so feel free to abandon me because of that…**

[*facepalms*]

(I don't need your opinion, voice.)

**And yes, I meant to release this almost a month earlier. And THAT'S why I said I was a procrastinator right off the bat. -_-lll**

**Well, please review! If there's something you didn't like, please tell me! I'll work to make it better! (Why am I using so many exclamation points?)**


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